Shady dealers of the past • Page 93 • Collecting General • The Acaeum

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Shady dealers of the past
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Kosh Vorlontay
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Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 12:35 am

What a nimrod :roll:

Cougie that is!

"Ah, you seek meaning? Then listen to the music, not the song."

"I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."

Zenopus
Verbose Collector

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Location: Portown

Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 12:45 am

lucyjoyce wrote: and am quietly amazed at bclarkie's CSI-The Acaeum starring role.

CSI-The Acaeum - sounds like good idea for a new game!

GraysonAC
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Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada, eh?

Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 2:40 am

Heheh.

** expired/removed eBay auction **

This one wasn't me.

AdderMcOne
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Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 6:32 am

Just for clarification could someone post the definition for "trolling", being a "troll" etc.

It's becoming more common on the threads, and I'm sorta getting the gist of it.

We don't have a lot of water here, let alone bridges for the buggers to live under, so don't see many of them.

(intention is not taking the p;ss, or fanning any flames regarding any previous posts/people. Just wanted to know.)

"Don't tempt me, I can resist anything but temptation"

Plaag
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Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 8:46 am

AdderMcOne wrote:Just for clarification could someone post the definition for "trolling", being a "troll" etc.

It's becoming more common on the threads, and I'm sorta getting the gist of it.

We don't have a lot of water here, let alone bridges for the buggers to live under, so don't see many of them.

(intention is not taking the p;ss, or fanning any flames regarding any previous posts/people. Just wanted to know.)

Troll (Internet) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ShaneG.

I reject your reality and substitute my own

thehiddenone
Active Collector

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Last Visit: Aug 26, 2017

Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 10:38 am

This is probably a better explanation Troll (Internet) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Plaag
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Posted: Sun Dec 10, 2006 11:22 am

thehiddenone wrote:This is probably a better explanation Troll (Internet) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Oh sure be that way.. I know what you are trying to do:

Flaming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

ShaneG.

I reject your reality and substitute my own

Improv
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Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2006 6:08 am

For what its worth ... Don't Lock This Thread. I would rather read the remarks and come to my own conclusions then not hear them at all.

bclarkie wrote:Everything that I have said and done to this point about this has been because of the fact that it pissed me off that others lost out at an opportunity at those auctions and not me.

We are lucky to have a few individuals in this forum that have the time and energy to put the pieces together of some of these nastier puzzles. Given the amount of crap I have seen on eBay it pays to be extra careful.

bclarkie wrote:that was bought on behalf of someone else from this forum, so that isn't even my purchase either.

Hmmm ... I take it that would be me :roll:

PM-Knight
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Posts: 555
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Last Visit: Sep 10, 2021
Location: Jupiter, FL

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 2:10 pm

I just finished reading through most of this thread and I wish that I had joined Acaeum sooner and been aware of these sellers. I recently had a poor experience with "Cougie" (cougarrinard) that I thought that I might share. I read through several pages of his Feedback and it is strange, as he has lots of Positive feedback and even a recent Buyer that made some good purchases:

cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& ... 0038812816
cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& ... 0038811837

Prior to my recent transaction, I had an 'okay' transaction with him and we even had an email exchange in which he shared a bit of his life story with me, which was . . . interesting :roll:

Anyhow, here are the events as they transpired:
On 10/25/06, I purchased and paid for a GAZ11 & UK4 for 22.50GBP ($43.25), including S&H, both of which were advertised as VGC. I now know that VGC does not stand for "Very Good Condition", but that it stands for "Variable Gaming Condition".
On 12/05/06, I contacted seller that items had not been received. He stated that they should show up here or return to him with "the Xmas post". I asked for a 50% refund, since I had not purchased insurance (my fault for trying to save $$ due to pricey S&H), which he stated that he did not have to do anything, but would offer me a 50% credit towards any additional purchases, due to our past transaction. I neither declined or accepted, but stated that another UK seller gave me a FULL refund after an item did not arrive and all I asked for was a refund of the item price, which I would repay if the item arrived.
On 12/18/06, the items arrived in silver-grey plastic package with a postmark of 11 DEC 2006. I contacted seller to say they arrived and asked what he would do if I returned the items unopened. Seller stated that he would refund purchase price (not S&H), minus eBay & PayPal fees, which would give me less than a 50% refund, after including my cost to return the items.
I contacted seller to say that I opened the package in the hopes that I would be able to re-sell them for more than his refund. The UK4 was in barely VGC and the GAZ11 cover was pretty beaten up, which could have been from origination or due to package being opened and re-packaged. I stated that I would leave a NEUTRAL feedback, which I felt was a fair & reasonable account. My notes even stated that I should have bought insurance and it was, "my fault".
Seller responds with NEGATIVE feedback and says he offered a refund (nothing about partial) and "why does he bother". Immediately afterwards, I receive an offer to Mutually Withdraw Feedback. I feel as though the seller is using eBay tools to strongarm me into cleaning up a Neutral FB by slamming me with Negtive FB. Feeling I have no other option, I agree to mutually withdraw.

Can someone please tell me if there is anything I (or we) can do or what I could have done differently . . . other than NOT dealing with him? If you look at his Neutral & Negative FB, you will see that the majority of it is WITHDRAWN, which leads me to believe that he is using this same tactic to bully people into withdrawing their honest Neutral or Negative feedback.

Thank You in Advance - PM

"Okay, we turn the corner and see a Purple 'WHAT' !?!" . . (the DM rolls a 20 or so he says) . . It all went black right after that.

[email protected]

Mars
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Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 2:25 pm

The two things I would have done differently are, first and foremost, don't buy anything you can get from someone else from the Coug. Sometimes, you can get some rare items for fairly cheap and it might be worth the risk.

Second, you should have responded with a negative feedback not neutral. Ebay's feedback system has so many problems that in general when you give a negative (anytime before the 90th day) expect to get negative feedback in return. Ebay's mutual feedback remove is just a tool for crappy sellers to make themselves look better. If you are a good seller and get an occassional negative from someone it shouldn't hurt your rating much. Crappy sellers get tons of negatives and can probably clear up half of them with the mutual feedback removal.

PM-Knight
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Location: Jupiter, FL

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 2:49 pm

Mars wrote:

Second, you should have responded with a negative feedback not neutral. Ebay's feedback system has so many problems that in general when you give a negative (anytime before the 90th day) expect to get negative feedback in return.

I agree with your assessment, but it is a double-edge "bastard" sword. If I had left Negative FB, then I knew he would reciprocate, but I honestly felt that Neutral FB was fair and both of us could have honestly stated our trading experiences without negatively impacting our feedback scores. In retrospect, I should not have left any feedback for him, as that is the only way to get a true Neutral score :wink:

"Okay, we turn the corner and see a Purple 'WHAT' !?!" . . (the DM rolls a 20 or so he says) . . It all went black right after that.

[email protected]

bclarkie
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Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 4:02 pm

PM-Knight wrote:Mars wrote:

I agree with your assessment, but it is a double-edge "bastard" sword. If I had left Negative FB, then I knew he would reciprocate, but I honestly felt that Neutral FB was fair and both of us could have honestly stated our trading experiences without negatively impacting our feedback scores. In retrospect, I should not have left any feedback for him, as that is the only way to get a true Neutral score

Sorry Paul, I couldn't disagree with you more in this circumstance. Unfortunately Couager has a feedback rating as "Good" as it is because of the tactics that he uses. I would have left a Neg or Neutral and kept it. Cougar could care less what your feedback score is, he got exactly what he wanted and that was the truthful comments that you left removed. Now some other unsuspecting buyer is going to come along and see that he has a decent feedback score without realizing that it is misleading and fall into the same trap that you did. That is Cougar's whole MO and as long as buyers who continue to get duped allow him to get away with it by either mutually withdrawing thier feedback or leaving no feedback at all, it is going to continue. Ebay's mutual withdrawl system is probably more flawed than the feedback system itself is. The only way that someone should be allowed to with draw there feedback that they left is if they clearly left the feedback in error i.e "Great Seller, fantastic transaction!" left inadvertantly as a negative feedback. Everything else should stay, because otherwise it allows sellers like Cougar to thrive by bullying people with undeserved retailatory feedback just like he did to you. I think that you had done everything right up until the part that you gave into to Coug's bullying and withdrew your feedback comments.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -Neitzche

Badmike
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Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 5:10 pm

PM-Knight wrote:Feeling I have no other option, I agree to mutually withdraw.

Can someone please tell me if there is anything I (or we) can do or what I could have done differently . . . other than NOT dealing with him? If you look at his Neutral & Negative FB, you will see that the majority of it is WITHDRAWN, which leads me to believe that he is using this same tactic to bully people into withdrawing their honest Neutral or Negative feedback.

Thank You in Advance - PM

#1, please share the "Life Experiences" info you got from Diamond Dave...this should be a hoot, and I need a good laugh before the holidays!

#2, BC is right. A neg is not going to hurt you. People feel a neg is a reflection on their manhood, on their worth as a human being, whatever, but frankly if you are mostly a buyer not a seller it's totally meaningless. By agreeing to be blackmailed by Coug, you simply make it easier for him to bend someone else over in the future. Instead, now Coug simply chalks up another Mutual Withdraw, and his feedback dodges yet another neg.

#3 Pursue whatever methods you can through ebay/paypal, including cancelling the transaction through your credit card company (not paypal) if you don't get resolution. Your CC company works for YOU, not Cougie, and if you dispute the sale they will take it off your record, refund you, and Cougie isleft holding the bag. Since the sale was totally misrepresented and you were coereced and threatened by the seller, you are well within your rights to get a full refund.

#4 In the future carefully read a seller's feedback, including the positives (which often say a lot outside the lines), and for god's sake a seller that rambles on, mispells words, and can't keep a correct font straight in his item descriptions should scream "RED FLAG IM A DYSLEXIC MORON" to a potential buyer. Avoid these types.

5. Realize Mutually Withdrawn Feedback should be counted as NEGATIVES 99.9 percent of the time, and act accordingly. Realistically, a legitimate seller shouldn't have anything approaching double digit Mutual Withdraws, and especially not half a hundred's worth.

6. Before you deal with a seller, it's worth the time to ask his policy on returns, lost packages, items substantially worst condition than indicated, etc. Anything less than a full refund or credit under these circumstances should make you suspicious, deal at your own risk.

Mike B.

"THE MORE YOU THINK ABOUT WHY i DONE WHAT i DONE THE MORE i LAUGH" Cougar
"The Acaeum hates fun" Sir Allen
"I had a collecting emergency" Nogrod
Co-founder of the North Texas RPG Con
NTRPGCON

renvhoek
Collector

Posts: 5
Joined: Jul 12, 2006
Last Visit: Dec 23, 2006

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:17 pm

In answer to the below person's question.

Yes, I did buy these items from my own store

However

(a) I didn't do it to engage in "shill" bidding. You can't "shill bid" a buy it now, you can only do that to an auction, in order to inflate the price. These were buy-it-nows

(b) I didn't do it to "raise my feedback". We're getting 3000+ feedback a month. So whether positive or negative, buying items from myself to leave feedback would be a complete waste of time. Not to mention, ebay actually only counts 1 feedback per buyer, for the % (from what I recall). They do that to stop exactly what someone mentioned as a possibility

I did it actually to test a piece of the software we are using. The only way to tell if part of our software works is to do a live ebay purchase, and see what the various emails or whatever I am testing look like to a live customer. And rather than inflict some poor sap on ebay with the test, better to test on myself. Since it cost me actual ebay listing fee $ when I test, you'll notice I bought from myself items at low value. e.g. $0.99

p.s. eBay never mentioned anything to me about the message bcarkie sent in, so I guess they ignored it. They probably thought it hilarious someone was accused of shill bidding on a buy it now item.

bclarkie wrote:I know that I promsed myself that I wasn't going to do this anymore, but I couldn't help myself on this one. In lieu of bbarsh's classifieds post he just put a few minutes ago:

viewtopic.php?p=66584#66584

It caused to take a look at his closed auctions. In doing this, it caused me stumble onto something very interesting indeed. It seems that renvhoek bought up several of his items. Now its well known to everyone here that renvhoek is actually the buying ID for none other than the habbitually listed in the "Silliest auction price of the year thread", trollandtoadstore. Well, for whatever reason, I decided to look at what renvhoek has been bidding on recently:

Welcome to eBay

Upon looking at renvhoek appears to be one of Troll and Toad's better customers. i.e this listing

** expired/removed eBay auction **

eBay '270021258689' - Invalid Item

and this listing as well:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 8808762908

I knew these guys were assholes, I just didn't realize that they were bidding and buying from themselves for whatever reason. Anyway, I just sent this into Ebay:

Hopefully, Ebay will act on this despite the fact that T and T is a larger store. Good riddance I say.........

Kosh Vorlontay
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Location: Spokane, WA

Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:26 pm

Well now...this should be interesting...(looking at above post)

bombadil
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Posted: Sat Dec 23, 2006 9:33 pm

How many times does it need to be said? T & T are outright crooked.

Let mirth prevail!

bclarkie
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 12:36 am

renvhoek wrote:In answer to the below person's question.

Yes, I did buy these items from my own store

However

(a) I didn't do it to engage in "shill" bidding. You can't "shill bid" a buy it now, you can only do that to an auction, in order to inflate the price. These were buy-it-nows

(b) I didn't do it to "raise my feedback". We're getting 3000+ feedback a month. So whether positive or negative, buying items from myself to leave feedback would be a complete waste of time. Not to mention, ebay actually only counts 1 feedback per buyer, for the % (from what I recall). They do that to stop exactly what someone mentioned as a possibility

I did it actually to test a piece of the software we are using. The only way to tell if part of our software works is to do a live ebay purchase, and see what the various emails or whatever I am testing look like to a live customer. And rather than inflict some poor sap on ebay with the test, better to test on myself. Since it cost me actual ebay listing fee $ when I test, you'll notice I bought from myself items at low value. e.g. $0.99

p.s. eBay never mentioned anything to me about the message bcarkie sent in, so I guess they ignored it. They probably thought it hilarious someone was accused of shill bidding on a buy it now item.

You guys are an absolute joke. Maybe I'll allow you to take advantage of my ignorance and buy one of your $16,000.00 Magic Cards. :roll:

Maybe I need to report you again, it wouldn't be the first time that I had report someone more than once before they acted on it....

Oh and for the record, It sellers just like you is exactly the reason why we have this thread.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -Neitzche

bclarkie
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Posted: Sun Dec 24, 2006 1:00 am

renvhoek wrote:In answer to the below person's question.

Yes, I did buy these items from my own store

However

(a) I didn't do it to engage in "shill" bidding. You can't "shill bid" a buy it now, you can only do that to an auction, in order to inflate the price. These were buy-it-nows

(b) I didn't do it to "raise my feedback". We're getting 3000+ feedback a month. So whether positive or negative, buying items from myself to leave feedback would be a complete waste of time. Not to mention, ebay actually only counts 1 feedback per buyer, for the % (from what I recall). They do that to stop exactly what someone mentioned as a possibility

I did it actually to test a piece of the software we are using. The only way to tell if part of our software works is to do a live ebay purchase, and see what the various emails or whatever I am testing look like to a live customer. And rather than inflict some poor sap on ebay with the test, better to test on myself. Since it cost me actual ebay listing fee $ when I test, you'll notice I bought from myself items at low value. e.g. $0.99

p.s. eBay never mentioned anything to me about the message bcarkie sent in, so I guess they ignored it. They probably thought it hilarious someone was accused of shill bidding on a buy it now item.

Oh and by the way, if the feedback really doesn't matter, then why did you leave feedback for the transaction anyway??? Its about 3/4 of the way down the feedback page:

eBay Feedback Profile for renvhoek

** expired/removed eBay auction **

I guess that the feedback doesn't matter right. I think that I will defintely report you again to Ebay until I get a response this time. And then when they boot all 3 of your IDs off, I will be sure to post it here too.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." -Neitzche

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